This week we’ve got something to help out any business owner that is experiencing growing pains: recruiting new staff. Here in this guest post, you’ll find the essentials to get you started. -Seth

The recruitment process can be a long-drawn out procedure that can cause even the most tolerant of company bosses to get a headache. However, there are some effective measures that can be taken into account to make the recruitment process much easier, and that is exactly what we are going to look into now.

Step 1 – Where Are You Listing The Job?

One of the most important points in an effective recruitment process is having a well written job description and knowing where to post it. In an age where technology is the driving force for communication you should be looking at social media platforms as one of the fundamental port-of-calls. Here you can utilize hashtags, spread the message to key influencers and find many people who are looking for a job.

You need to find out what you recruitment goal is, what are you hoping to achieve at this point. A great staffing agency in Syracuse, Staffworks CNY came up with 3 main objectives that an employer should be looking at:

• Are you looking to employ someone of a higher standard?
• Are you looking at promoting your company as a dynamic place to work?
• Are you looking to employ someone with a skill set that nobody else in the company has?

Step 2 – Take Every CV into Consideration

Just because certain CV’s may not look appealing at first site, or some go on to a couple of pages, you need to vet each individual one on a merit-by-merit basis. You don’t want to overlook a CV when it could be the perfect candidate that you have been looking for.
Take your time to analyse each CV before you begin moving onto the interview process.

(Ed. Note/Full Disclosure: We don’t typically ask to see resume in our own recruitment process here at SBT. Because a good writer is not easy to find and is a primary skill we look for, a well written cover letter is enough for us to decide if we want to move on to an interview or not. Your business likely has different demands, and asking to see a resume is generally a good thing to do. They may not reveal the full picture, but can give you a jumping off point to dig deeper during your interview)

Step 3 – Questions to Ask at The Interview Stage

(Another Ed. Note: While refining my own interview process, I came across a philosophy that figures the best way to recruit a candidate that is the right fit for your company is to a) treat them like a human being, b) remember to sell your company to them, give them a reason to want to work for you more than others, and c) forget the questions and just have a conversation. I really like this philosophy, but its a little too advanced for me at this point. If I had a better second nature for questions and comments that would dispense with any prepared answers and tell me what I want to know, I’d be practicing that philosophy instead of what I do now, which is rely on pre-thought out questions and my notes.)

When it comes to preparing questions for an interview, there is a general set of questions that most companies will ask a prospective candidate, and they are questions that are used frequently for many reasons.

These tend to be:

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

What you want to ascertain from this question is how well a candidates personal and employment history best matches them to the job. You are looking for what they can tell you about their accomplishments and achievements.

What are your weaknesses?

Now this one is quite an intimidating question to ask, and you can often tell a lot by a candidate’s body language when asking them this. Remember, everyone has a weakness that they can improve on so you are looking to see what their main weakness is, backed up by how they are looking to turn it into strength.

(Yup, it’s an Ed. Note: I don’t believe there’s an answer to this question that isn’t at least partially B.S. Instead, try asking them about their last job and what they like or didn’t like.)

Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?

This is another key question that puts the candidate on the spot, you want to know If they are going to be dedicated to the job, if they have realistic life expectations and you can gauge the candidates ambitions, goal and growth from just the answer they give to this question.

There are plenty of other questions that can be asked, and they all find out different parts of a candidates personality and character, it’s also a good idea to throw in some less known questions to see how they handle themselves with an answer that they may not have prepared for.

Step 4–Question to Ask When Getting References

In an age where new rules and regulations have been brought in, a former employer can’t give a bad reference to an employer, only a good one. Whilst saying nothing at all obviously contributes to a bad reference, there are questions you can ask in order to get a better understanding of a candidates experience and skills.

Perhaps the biggest question will be to asked are:

What was his or her reason for leaving?

You are looking to determine what the specific cause was here, and if you can extract any information to how they terminated their contract at their previous company.

Is there anything I should take into consideration before hiring?

This questions leaves the field completely open for a candidates previous employer to express anything to you (remember they can’t be negative, but you can get a lot of information from posing this question).

Contributed by: Staffworks CNY, a staffing agency based in Syracuse. Staffworks believes that companies success lies in experienced industry professionals that manage and staffed offices with the right candidates. We help them to find right people for their workplace and provide various services like temporary staffing to professional placement, payroll and group benefit services.